Scoping Policies for Bentley Products using K2 7.4

Several Bentley products are licensed based on the maximum number of objects that can be created. For example, a WaterCAD license might limit the number of “pipes” allowable within a model. In K2 7.4 you can configure different policies to represent each “pipe” level by using the new Tags feature.

This post describes how you can create policies to support the specific licenses that you have purchased, and ensure that the licenses are assigned to the appropriate computers. You will need to upgrade to K2 7.4 on the server and client in order to take advantage of this functionality. Since there are times when upgrading a client is not immediately possible, we also cover a temporary solution for supporting older clients.

Auto-discovery of Bentley WaterCAD’s “pipes” setting

Bentley provides a tool with which you can set the features that are installed on each computer. This tool is run prior to using a particular Bentley product in order to select the features and maximums that will be available to that product.

Municipal License Manager showing choices for WaterCAD

KeyAccess version 7.4 is able to detect the “pipe” setting for WaterCAD (and similar settings for other Bentley products), and will send that information to KeyServer when the product is used. This information is then associated with the computer in the form of a “tag”. Tags are arbitrary text strings that can be used for reporting, policy scopes, and filtering.

Tags for computers are listed in the Computers window, and also in the details window for each computer that has that tag. The left hand side of the Computers shows the relevant tags under the Bentley heading. Each computer details window shows the tag as well as the relevant value. For WaterCAD the value will be the maximum number of pipes. Other products use different settings, for example StormCAD specifies the number out “inlets” and PondPack specifies the number of “ponds”).

Tags discovered for Bentley products

KeyAccess 7.4 recognizes the following products and associated object maximums:

CivilStorm

links

PondPack

ponds

SewerCAD

pipes

SewerGEMS

pipes

StormCAD

inlets

WaterCAD

pipes

WaterGEMS

pipes

Assigning Policies based on Bentley WaterCAD’s “pipe” setting

Once tags have been assigned to computers they can be used as the “Scope” of Policies. A Policy’s scope determines the set of computers (or users) to which that Policy applies. So if we create a Policy that represents the licenses for WaterCAD with a maximum of 1000 pipes, we want to make sure that the computers that have been configured for 1000 pipes (by Bentley’s Municipal License Manager) are governed by this policy.

WaterCAD Policy scoped for 1000 Pipes

In the screenshot above we have given the policy a scope of “#Bentley.WATERCAD:1000”. The scope begins with “#” to indicate that it is a tag scope. Next is the tag name, “Bentley.WATERCAD”, followed by a colon and then the desired value, 1000.

This policy will only apply to computers that are configured with a maximum of 1000 pipes for WaterCAD. While the above policy uses the Lease metric, it is possible to use Tag scoping for other metrics as well.

Create separate Policies for other quantities of “pipe”

As noted, the policy described above will only apply when WaterCAD is configured for 1000 pipes. For other “pipe” settings that you have licensed, you will need to make separate policies, each with the appropriate Tag scope.

Finally, for cases when someone runs WaterCAD with a pipe setting that you have not licensed, you should create a “Deny” policy for the WaterCAD product. This policy will be used as a last measure when no other policies apply, and will stop the unlicensed program usage from proceeding.

Supporting Computers with older versions of KeyAccess

It is best to upgrade your client computers to KeyAccess 7.4 so the “pipes” (and other) values will be updated automatically. For times when upgrading a client computer is delayed, edit the corresponding computer record to have the appropriate tag. This allows that computer to use the appropriate policy. Open the computer record in KeyConfigure and edit the Tags field to include the tag “Bentley.WATERCAD:1000”, or similarly for other products and license settings. Once KeyAccess 7.4 is installed on such computers, the various Bentley tags will be updated automatically when Bentley products are used.

Adding a tag to a computer

Summary

Using the new Tag feature of K2 7.4 you are able to more precisely and automatically assign Bentley policies based on settings that are made on the client computer. You can now more effectively manage Bentley products like WaterCAD that might be limited to a maximum number of pipes or other objects.